Tomatoes - So Long It's Been Good to Know Ya'

It has been the most wonderful, plentiful year of tomato growing ever for us. We’ve canned many jars or Italian tomato sauce; we canned many jars of paste tomatoes. I dried 4 quarts jars of tomatoes. We’ve had tomatoes for lunch and supper again and again.  Tomato soup. Clams in tomato sauce. Etcetera ad infinitum. It’s October and they were still coming in.

Finally, I gave up my entire Friday afternoon to preparing a last sauce, not for canning but just for eating this week. It came out delicious.  We had the very last sliced for supper. I picked through a bunch of green tomatoes Woody brought in, discarded the hard green lumps and kept all those I can make curried fried tomatoes with. But maybe I’ll get to that, maybe not. We still have patty pans and many beans, swiss chard, leeks a few zucchinis and peppers.This has been an unprecedented garden year. The only failure we had were the cucumbers. We finally picked some in September.

The gardens are finally winding down. I’ve begun planning for the herbs and maybe an ornamental plant or two I want to bring in. Beginning to count those that need potting and look for pots. Soon. Until it gets colder, I don’t need to yet.

Old friends from Cambridge, Bonnie and David, who have spent springs and some of fall here the last few years have now moved out of their Brookline house and full time to Wellfleet. It’s a complicated process. Taking inventory, packing up, discarding half a life-time. (I do not look forward to doing this, obviously, but of course it’s inevitable.) Woody helped David take some stuff to the dump yesterday morning. We’re talking about getting a small dumpster to place by the drive so we can get rid of our stuff gradually. But not yet!

I finished THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeleine Miller, as well as her short story published as a tiny book, Galatea. I very much like the reimagining of myths and history from a feminist viewpoint. I did that in HE, SHE AND IT, taking on the myth of the Golem.

I’m just starting ATALANTA (Princess of Arcadia. Member of the Argonauts) by Jennifer Saint-- a story I found very disturbing as a child. Why didn’t you just keep running and save your freedom, I asked the lead character every time I read it.  My schoolteacher aunt on my father’s side, Aunt Georgene, gave me a set of books that had many myths from different cultures in it. I never felt she liked me, but she gave me books that I very much cherished and enjoyed and often reread.

Fall is my second favorite season, after spring. Summer is difficult.  Often too hot to get into the garden unless we get up very early and go straight out. Humidity gets me, drags me down. I like cooler weather best. I have more energy.